By ashamed, I don’t mean the fact that you’ve made yourself a hypocrite on the so-called “right-to-work” issue. We all know you ran as a moderate and then dilly-dallied for two years while people kept asking you to spell out exactly where you stood on the matter. Like a belle at the ball, you demurred, playing coy and clever with the Michigan public.

Until last week, that is, when you apparently decided overnight that not only did Michigan need a right-to-work law, it needed it now. As in, right now. As in, today. This very second. Suddenly, everything changed.

That’s how you wanted it to seem, Mr. Governor, but you don’t have me fooled.

I’ve never bought into the good cop/bad cop charade you’ve played with the Republican leaders of the legislature. It’s been clear to me all along that you are one side of the coin, and Speaker Bolger and Senate Majority Leader Richardville are the other. They propose, you impose. They do the dirty work, and you have made it your job to be the smiling face of plutocracy. You may have fooled millions of citizens of our state, but you never fooled me.

And that’s still not what I’m wondering what you’re ashamed of. If anything, I should thank you for ending your game of make-believe and letting everyone see you for what you are.

What I’m specifically wondering is this: Governor, aren’t you ashamed to be presiding over the death of democracy in our state?

How did it feel to work in consort with your henchmen in the legislature and your corporate funders to defraud the citizens? What did you think when the doors of the people’s house were closed to those very same people? Did you have a moment of remorse? A twinge of regret? What did you think when you heard that Republican staffers were crowding out the actual public who came to see what was happening that day? What was it like to take an issue that you yourself called unworkably divisive and push it through the legislature in a single day, without even the benefit of a single committee hearing or a single word of testimony – while doing everything in your power to make sure that even the protestors who showed up that day would not be heard? Is this your idea of not being divisive?

Mr. Governor, do you have any decency left?

If you do, then at least have the courage to hear what your own citizens are saying. Hear them out, because that’s what a leader of a democracy does. And if you won’t even do that, then let’s drop this pretense of being a democracy. You can change your title from governor to autocrat, and at least that would be honest.

But better yet, hear us out. Do the right thing. Don’t sign these bills.

PS – You blinked very frequently when you talked about these bills at your press conference. That’s a “tell” that you were lying.